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Folding - Team PCFormat ZA #128409 - RANK 768
Posted: 19 May 2008, 23:51
by Vampyre_2099
Folding wrote:
What is Folding@home? What is protein folding?
Folding@home is a distributed computing project, that very simply stated, studies protein folding and misfolding. Protein folding is explained in more detail in the scientific background section.
What is distributed computing?
Distributed Computing is a method of computer processing in which different parts of a program, or different portions of data, are processing simultaneously on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network or through the Internet.
Who "owns" the results? What will happen to them?
Unlike other distributed computing projects, Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's - Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.
Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles that analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site.
Why not just use a supercomputer?
Modern supercomputers are essentially clusters of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. The speed of these processors is comparable to (and often slower than) those found in PCs! Thus, if an algorithm (like ours) does not need the fast networking, it will run just as fast on a supercluster as a supercomputer. However, our application needs not the hundreds of processors found in modern supercomputers, but hundreds of thousands of processors. Hence, the calculations performed on Folding@home would not be possible by any other means! Moreover, even if we were given exclusive access to all of the supercomputers in the world, we would still have fewer computing cycles than we do with the Folding@home cluster! This is possible since PC processors are now very fast and there are hundreds of millions of PCs sitting idle in the world.
Can I run Folding@home on a machine I don't own?
Please only run Folding@home on machines you either own or on which you have the permission of the owner to run our software. Any other use of Folding@home violates our license agreement (and just isn't a good idea in general).
What are the minimum system requirements?
All computers can contribute to Folding@home. However, if the computer is too slow (e.g. wasn't bought in the last 3-4 years or so), the computer might not be fast enough to make the deadlines of typical work units. A Pentium 3 450 MHz or newer equivalent computer (with SSE) is able to complete work units before they expire.
Come on people, this is for the good of human kind. It pretty much sits on your computer while you not busy and does a couple of calculations that could save someones life.
Download
Home
Overclock.net/Folding
Hey guys and girls, sorry I only realised now (Thanks spearone) that I have no instructions of how to join the team...
Anyway, its nice and simple, download the client (whether it be cpu, gpu or PS3), when you first run it, you should be greeted with a screen that has 3 inputs, a username, a team number and a passkey. For username, just enter the username you'd like to fold under (maybe using your forum name would be easiest, but the choice is yours), the team number is 128409 and the passkey can stay blank... thats only really for teams that don't want random people joining (we're not stingy
). And then thats it, click OK and you're on your way to helping us hopefully find cures for diseases
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Posted: 19 May 2008, 23:53
by DAE_JA_VOO
I used to fold all the time, and i started folding again last week.
You can fold in Linux too
Posted: 20 May 2008, 06:46
by UrBaN
I r Officially a folder
Posted: 20 May 2008, 06:47
by Anakha56
i dont think Eskom would appreciate me chowing up the power to fold some proteins...
plus my pc is all about gaming so it spends very little time sitting idle...
Posted: 20 May 2008, 06:54
by UrBaN
I bet it's sitting idle right now
Anyway, do PCF have a Folding Team number? If not, we should get one.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 07:21
by Vampyre_2099
DAE_JA_VOO wrote:You can fold in Linux too
Hey guys, I'm glad to see that you're all enthusiastic. Ya DAE, I know you can fold in Linux, and the best part is, ti works best in Linux. Over on Overclock.net even the windows guys run VMWare with ubuntu because the linux client is THAT much better
EDIT:
Hey Cameron and the team... Heres a link to the create a team webpage
Clicky Clicky
I would create the team, but I don't feel its right as I have nothing to do with PCFormat
Posted: 20 May 2008, 07:43
by Anakha56
UrBaN wrote:I bet it's sitting idle right now
Actually its off to save power
Posted: 20 May 2008, 07:45
by DAE_JA_VOO
Vampyre_2099 wrote:DAE_JA_VOO wrote:Ya DAE, I know you can fold in Linux, and the best part is, ti works best in Linux.
Listen man, what client do they use? Because the one i have SUCKS
Posted: 20 May 2008, 07:49
by Hman
Folding... Would you fold for PCFormat?... Fold, not bend
No.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:34
by UrBaN
Well I think if you're going to buy a PC with shyteloads of power and processing capability, you may as well use it right? Rendering polygons so that Crysis looks great is great...but a cure for Parkinson's is a TEEEENY weeny bit better..isn't it?
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:47
by Hex_Rated
And since Cancer kills like 10-15% of the population and you have almost a 50% chance of getting it in your lifetime, I think it's a good reason to fold. Someone here has cystic fibrosis, also another good reason to fold. Your electricity bill won't increase that much.
Better than SETI@Home (don't get me wrong, it's still important). Besides, if aliens wanted to contact us they'd do so and they wouldn't use outdated radio. Directional laser is much more efficient.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:51
by Monty
UrBaN wrote:Well I think if you're going to buy a PC with shyteloads of power and processing capability, you may as well use it right? Rendering polygons so that Crysis looks great is great...but a cure for Parkinson's is a TEEEENY weeny bit better..isn't it?
I'm not so sure hey... LOL J/K
I would do this but we have bandwidth issues in my house (and I'm always the fall guy)
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:52
by Mow
I have been folding for quite a while on all 4 of my PC's . A pcformat team would be owesome. Infact , check the link below my PC specs
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:55
by Vampyre_2099
Monty wrote:I'm not so sure hey... LOL J/K
I would do this but we have bandwidth issues in my house (and I'm always the fall guy)
I hear you and this was one of my concerns, but they say that it will only use about 300MB a month for uploading and downloading the data
DAE_JA_VOO wrote:Listen man, what client do they use? Because the one i have SUCKS :Sad:
They currently using version 5.04 or something like that. In order to go smp you need to have a 64bit version of linux, which I think sucks, but it means that I won't be using smp then.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 08:59
by Monty
We don't have 300MB spare
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:03
by hamin_aus
Monty wrote:We don't have 300MB spare
R'Amen, brother!
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:04
by Mow
You can throttle it to meet your needs. So if you only want to spend 50 mb you can...
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:18
by UrBaN
Mow how do you throttle it? I didn't see any options there..
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:29
by Mow
I'll take a look when i get back to my pc. Working from a different machine atm. Will be back around 4 . I am sure I saw a way to limit data transfer.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:39
by Vampyre_2099
I know theres an option for dial-up users where it only sends once you're connected and there was something else it did, but I can't remember
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:41
by UrBaN
There is an option to force it to ask before accessing the network (and therefore internet). I have enabled that...don't want any nasty surprises.
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:43
by Vampyre_2099
UrBaN wrote:There is an option to force it to ask before accessing the network (and therefore internet). I have enabled that...don't want any nasty surprises.
I too, have enabled that option, makes sense when you don't have unlimited cap
Posted: 20 May 2008, 09:55
by Mow
I want to find out if i can download a chank of data for one pc and have all four my machine proccess the same chunk. Like my on little cluster ..
Posted: 20 May 2008, 10:06
by Vampyre_2099
Mow wrote:I want to find out if i can download a chank of data for one pc and have all four my machine proccess the same chunk. Like my on little cluster ..
from what I've found so far, that is possible
Posted: 20 May 2008, 10:21
by Mow
Cool , I will look into it. Please forgive my spelling and grammer errors in the previous post.